DOCSLIB.ORG

Critical Discourse Analysis of a Native and Non-Native Translator of Tirukural

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

David 1 Navajyoti, International Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Research Volume 5, Issue 2, February 2021 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF A NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE TRANSLATOR OF TIRUKURAL Chris Tina David, M.A English with Cultural Studies Christ University, Bengaluru. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: Various articles and papers that were found on the translation studies are mostly on the translated text rather on the translator. Therefore, the area in which this paper is attempting to pave the way to give equal importance to the translator as well as the product. The translated text this paper focuses on is a classical Tamil literary text which is originally called ‘Muppaal’, famously pointed out as ‘Kural’. Kural has been considered as the most widely translated non- religious text. It is said that the text has been translated into eighty-two languages. This paper has chosen to compare and contrast based on critical discourse analysis are George Uglow Pope and Sri Varahaneri Venkatesa Subramnaiam Aiyar. The motive to relay on the above-given translators is only because these translators are the ones who first translated the whole text on the category of native and non-native translators. Keywords: Translation studies, Kural ______________________________________________________________________________ Introduction The rapidly growing multidisciplinary identity of translation studies has extended its range not only at the linguistic level but took the discipline to the practical experience of the translator to know the product given by the translator. Placing the translated text in front and ignoring the translator is prejudicial work. The connection between any text and the translator is equally David 2 important as the connection between the text and the author. Various articles and papers that were found on the translation studies are mostly on the translated text rather on the translator. Therefore, the area in which this paper is attempting to pave the way to give equal importance to the translator as well as the product. The translated text this paper focuses on is a classical Tamil literary text which is originally called ‘Muppaal’, famously pointed out as ‘Kural’. This text was believed to be written by Thiruvalluvar. His name and the history of both the text and the author is still debatable, but the fact that it is written in old Tamil proves that this belongs around 31st BC. The specialty of the text lies, on the condition that the author refrains from dealing with any ideas related to caste, religion, or language. Because the paper deals with the text and the context, it is important to look at the period in which the text has been written. The texts written in the period comes under the ‘sangam literature’. Since the text ‘kural’ has no prejudice made this text spread across overseas. Kural has been considered as the most widely translated non- religious text. It is said that the text has been translated into eighty-two languages. As a writer, who is bilingual in Tamil and English, it is just fine to focus on the translations in English. The English language solely has fifty-seven versions accessible in hand. In this paper, one is likely to stick to one translator who is alien to Tamil and made an attempt to translate kural to English and on the other hand, who is a native speaker of Tamil and made an attempt to translate into English. Further narrowing it down to the translators the author has chosen to compare and contrast based on critical discourse analysis are George Uglow Pope and Sri Varahaneri Venkatesa Subramnaiam Aiyar. The motive to relay on the above-given translators is only because these translators are the ones who first translated the whole text on the category of native and non-native translators. G U Pope was a missionary from Canada, who spent around forty years in Tamil Nadu. Along with the translation of Kural, he also translated many texts including a famous text from the Sangam literature which is ‘Thiruvasagam’. Later, he became a scholar in Tamil, Sanskrit, and Telugu. On the other hand, V S S Aiyar was a freedom fighter from Tamil Nadu who fought against the British Colonization. He also contributed to the Tamil literature; in addition to that, he was called the father of Tamil modern short story. He translated the Thirukural under the title ‘The Kural or the Maxims of Thiruvalluvar’ in 1916. G U Pope, on the other hand, translated the Kural under the title ‘The sacred Kurral of Thiruvalluvar Nayanar’ in 1958. It was the period when the British colonized India. To contextualize the period with the translation made by both the translators is important because it is inevitable to look into the David 3 context and the text from two different angles. Therefore, this paper will reveal the process and politics of the translations undergone by both the translators through critical discourse analysis with a major part given to the author and the reason for the terms used by them in the translation. The methodology used here to analyze the above mentioned translated texts is critical discourse analysis which is used when language is used as a tool to communicate the essence to explain the content. In the meantime, we would come across politics and the context of the texts. Critical discourse analysis, therefore, studies the structure, meaning, shape, from the tone to the reception of the text by outspread spectators. The application of each term, content, essence falls under the discourse is also the fragment of the assessment. The methodology enables analysis of more than one simple question by inculcating what discourse is being asked to do in the process of encoding (translating), decoding, and utilization by the reader. Literature review As ‘Kural’ is considered a widely known text, there are many scholars who explored various aspects through it. While encountering some articles and research papers, one can find few gaps waiting for them to be explored. There are a few articles mentioned here to give the overall view of the area and how much it has been explored. Also, this paper has hired a few ideas from books and articles to justify the argument made by the writer. ‘Active vs Reactive Texts in the translations of Thirukkural’ by S P Visalakshi. This article talks about the translation of G U Pope by using step by step systematic analysis. This article weakens when the text concludes by stating that this translation does not contain the essence of the original. This void can be filled during the process. ‘French Translations of Thirukural – A Comparative Study’ by Dr. Uma Allaghery, in her articles compare two versions of translations of Thirukural. The writer wrapped by the article by comparing the two selected couplets form the selected versions and stated these two translators gave their best in translations according to their socio-cultural and sociolinguistic perspectives. This article contains the idea in which each translator will be inclined to their respective cultural and linguistic background with or without their conscious mind. The idea will be borrowed and utilized in this paper. David 4 “Tirukkural Translations of G U Pope and Rajaji – A Comparative Study” written by J Jaya Parveen and V Rajesh. Here the writers compare these two translations based on the linguistic level. They further deal with lexical choice, punctuation, and collocation, and so on. Moving on with the same idea, they had chosen a few Kural from both the translations and tried comparing with the other. In the concluding statement, the writers have made a statement that G U Pope had translated ‘word to word’ kind whereas, while Rajaji translated ‘sense to sense’ kind of translation. As a writer of this paper, one can find this article hold gaps which can be filled in this paper by starting with G U Pope’s translation cannot be comprised in a term like ‘word to word’ translation. The idea of Critical discourse analysis was borrowed from the book ‘Research Methodologies in Translations Studies- Routledge’ by Gabriela Saldanha and Sharon O’Brien. This book comprises many methodologies that can be used under translation studies. Giuseppe Palumbo’s work ‘Key Terms in Translation Studies-Continuum’ enlightened this paper in the usage of a few technical terms in the area of translation studies. This book can be a guide for scholars pursuing this area. Also, this book comprises major thinkers in translation studies that aid the writers in many ways. Furthermore, the book also directs the scholars to many more readings to gain deeper knowledge in this particular area. Critical Discourse Analysis After encountering with the preface to, The Sacred Kurral given by Dr. G U Pope, one could understand the purpose of his translation. ‘I tried to help forward the study of this admirable language among both Europeans and the Natives’ (pope, 1886). As a writer of this paper and as a reader of this translation, one will find out whether Dr. Pope has attained his purpose during the process of his translation. ‘I have in transliteration used rr for ‘ra (letter in Tamil-an extra stress in R)’ and have, therefore, written Kurral. In this, I follow the example of Beschi’ (Pope, 1886). Constantine Joseph Beschi, also known as Veeramamunivar, who composed the first Tamil lexicon – a Tamil Latin dictionary on which Pope looked up for his references. Other than this reference, there is in nowhere it is mentioned about the source of his learning. As one could agree on, every
Recommended publications
  • “Lost in Translation”: a Study of the History of Sri Lankan Literature

    “Lost in Translation”: a Study of the History of Sri Lankan Literature

    Karunakaran / Lost in Translation “Lost in Translation”: A Study of the History of Sri Lankan Literature Shamila Karunakaran Abstract This paper provides an overview of the history of Sri Lankan literature from the ancient texts of the precolonial era to the English translations of postcolonial literature in the modern era. Sri Lanka’s book history is a cultural record of texts that contains “cultural heritage and incorporates everything that has survived” (Chodorow, 2006); however, Tamil language works are written with specifc words, ideas, and concepts that are unique to Sri Lankan culture and are “lost in translation” when conveyed in English. Keywords book history, translation iJournal - Journal Vol. 4 No. 1, Fall 2018 22 Karunakaran / Lost in Translation INTRODUCTION The phrase “lost in translation” refers to when the translation of a word or phrase does not convey its true or complete meaning due to various factors. This is a common problem when translating non-Western texts for North American and British readership, especially those written in non-Roman scripts. Literature and texts are tangible symbols, containing signifed cultural meaning, and they represent varying aspects of an existing international ethnic, social, or linguistic culture or group. Chodorow (2006) likens it to a cultural record of sorts, which he defnes as an object that “contains cultural heritage and incorporates everything that has survived” (pg. 373). In particular, those written in South Asian indigenous languages such as Tamil, Sanskrit, Urdu, Sinhalese are written with specifc words, ideas, and concepts that are unique to specifc culture[s] and cannot be properly conveyed in English translations.
  • GRAMMAR of OLD TAMIL for STUDENTS 1 St Edition Eva Wilden

    GRAMMAR of OLD TAMIL for STUDENTS 1 St Edition Eva Wilden

    GRAMMAR OF OLD TAMIL FOR STUDENTS 1 st Edition Eva Wilden To cite this version: Eva Wilden. GRAMMAR OF OLD TAMIL FOR STUDENTS 1 st Edition. Eva Wilden. Institut français de Pondichéry; École française d’Extrême-Orient, 137, 2018, Collection Indologie. halshs- 01892342v2 HAL Id: halshs-01892342 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01892342v2 Submitted on 24 Jan 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. GRAMMAR OF OLD TAMIL FOR STUDENTS 1st Edition L’Institut Français de Pondichéry (IFP), UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MAE, est un établissement à autonomie financière sous la double tutelle du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (MAE) et du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Il est partie intégrante du réseau des 27 centres de recherche de ce Ministère. Avec le Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) à New Delhi, il forme l’USR 3330 du CNRS « Savoirs et Mondes Indiens ». Il remplit des missions de recherche, d’expertise et de formation en Sciences Humaines et Sociales et en Écologie dans le Sud et le Sud- est asiatiques. Il s’intéresse particulièrement aux savoirs et patrimoines culturels indiens (langue et littérature sanskrites, histoire des religions, études tamoules…), aux dynamiques sociales contemporaines, et aux ecosystèmes naturels de l’Inde du Sud.
  • Vestiges of Indus Civilisation in Old Tamil

    Vestiges of Indus Civilisation in Old Tamil

    Vestiges of Indus Civilisation in Old Tamil Iravatham Mahadevan Indus Research Centre Roja Mulhiah Research LJbrary. Chennai Tamiloadu Endowment Lecture Tamilnadu History Congress 16tb Annual Session, 9-11 October 2009 Tirucbirapalli, Tamilnadu Tamilnadu Hi story Congress 2009 Vestiges of Indus Civilisation in Old Tamil Iravatham Mahadevan Introduction 0. 1 II is indeed a great privilege 10 be invited to deliver the prestigious Tamilnadu Endowment Lecture at the Annual Session of the Tamilnadu History Congress. I am grateful to the Executive and to the General Bod y of the Congress for the signal honour be~towed on me. I am not a historian. My discipline is ep igraphy, in whic h I have specialised in the ralher are,lne fields o f the Indus Script and Tamil - Brahmi inscriptions. It is rather unusual for an epigraphist to be asked to deliver tile keynote address at a History Congre%. I alll all the more pleased at the recognition accorded to Epigraphy, which is, especially ill the case of Tamilnadu. the foundation on which the edifice of history has been raised. 0.2 Let me also at the outset declare my interest. [ have two personal reasons 10 accept the invitation. despite my advanced age and failing health. This session is being held at Tiruchirapalli. where I was born and brought up. ! am happy 10 be back in my hOllle lown to participate in these proceedings. I am also eager to share with you some of my recent and still-not-fully-published findings relating 10 the interpretation of the In dus Script. My studies have gradually led me to the COllciusion thaI the Indus Script is not merely Dm\'idian linguistically.
  • Dravidian Letters in Tamil Grantha Script Some Notes in Their History of Use

    Dravidian Letters in Tamil Grantha Script Some Notes in Their History of Use

    Dravidian Letters in Tamil Grantha Script Some Notes in Their History of Use Dr. Naga Ganesan ([email protected]) 1.0 Introduction Earlier, in L2/11-011 with the title, Diacritic Marks for Short e & o Vowels (Dravidian and Vedic) in Devanagari (North India) and Grantha (South India), Vedic vowels, short e & o in Devanagari are recommended to be transcribed into Grantha in Unicode using the corresponding letters as in Govt. of India (GoI) proposal. The archaic Dravidian short /e/ & /o/ typically use a “dot” (puLLi) diacritic on long /e/ & /o/ vowels in south India, and this was originally proposed in the Grantha proposal after consultations with epigraphists and Tamil Grantha scholars. Reference: the Table of Dravidian letters in Grantha proposal by Dr. Swaran Lata, Govt. of India letter, pg. 8, L2/11-011 is given: This document is to add some further inputs about the history of Tamil written in Grantha script. Grantha Tamil or Tamil Grantha, by definition, can handle writing both Indo- Aryan (Sanskrit and its derived languages) and Dravidian such as Tamil language. Both Tamil script with explicit virama, and Tamil Grantha script with implicit virama grew up together in their history, that is the reason about 30 letters are very similar between the two scripts. For example, page 37, A. C. Burnell, Elements of South Indian Paleography, 1874. “The origin of this Tamil alphabet is apparent at first sight; it is a brahmanical adaptation of the Grantha letters corresponding to the old VaTTezuttu, from which, however, the last four signs (LLL, LL, RR and NNN) have been retained.” For the co-development of Tamil and Grantha scripts exchanging letter forms is dealt in B.
  • Poetics of Place in Early Tamil Literature by Vangal N Muthukumar

    Poetics of Place in Early Tamil Literature by Vangal N Muthukumar

    Poetics of place in early Tamil literature by Vangal N Muthukumar A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in South and Southeast Asian Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor George L. Hart, Chair Professor Munis D. Faruqui Professor Robert P. Goldman Professor Bonnie C. Wade Fall 2011 Poetics of place in early Tamil literature Copyright 2011 by Vangal N Muthukumar 1 Abstract Poetics of place in early Tamil literature by Vangal N Muthukumar Doctor of Philosophy in South and Southeast Asian Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor George L. Hart, Chair In this dissertation, I discuss some representations of place in early (ca. 100 CE - 300 CE) Tamil poetry collectively called caṅkam literature. While previous research has emphasized the im- portance of place as landscape imagery in these poems, it has seldom gone beyond treating landscape / place as symbolic of human emotionality. I argue that this approach does not ad- dress the variety in the representation of place seen in this literature. To address this the- oretical deficiency, I study place in caṅkam poetry as having definite ontological value and something which is immediately cognized by the senses of human perception. Drawing from a range of texts, I will argue that in these poems, the experience of place emerges in a di- alogic between the human self and place - a dialogic which brings together sensory experi- ence, perception, memory, and various socio-cultural patterns; place, in these poems, is not as much an objective geographical entity as it is the process of perception itself.
  • Ancestral Dravidian Languages in Indus Civilization

    Ancestral Dravidian Languages in Indus Civilization

    ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00868-w OPEN Ancestral Dravidian languages in Indus Civilization: ultraconserved Dravidian tooth-word reveals deep linguistic ancestry and supports genetics ✉ Bahata Ansumali Mukhopadhyay 1 Ever since the discovery of Indus valley civilization, scholars have debated the linguistic identities of its people. This study analyzes numerous archaeological, linguistic, archae- 1234567890():,; ogenetic and historical evidences to claim that the words used for elephant (like, ‘pīri’, ‘pīru’) in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, the elephant-word used in the Hurrian part of an Amarna letter of ca. 1400 BC, and the ivory-word (‘pîruš’) recorded in certain sixth century BC Old Persian documents, were all originally borrowed from ‘pīlu’, a Proto-Dravidian elephant-word, which was prevalent in the Indus valley civilization, and was etymologically related to the Proto- Dravidian tooth-word ‘*pal’ and its alternate forms (‘*pīl’/‘*piḷ’/‘*pel’). This paper argues that there is sufficient morphophonemic evidence of an ancient Dravidian ‘*piḷ’/‘*pīl’-based root, which meant ‘splitting/crushing’, and was semantically related to the meanings ‘tooth/tusk’. This paper further observes that ‘pīlu’ is among the most ancient and common phytonyms of the toothbrush tree Salvadora persica, which is a characteristic flora of Indus valley, and whose roots and twigs have been widely used as toothbrush in IVC regions since antiquity. This study claims that this phytonym ‘pīlu’ had also originated from the same Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and argues that since IVC people had named their toothbrush trees and tuskers (elephants) using a Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and since these names were widely used across IVC regions, a significant population of Indus valley civilization must have used that Proto-Dravidian tooth-word in their daily communication.
  • Title Ancestral Dravidian Languages in Indus Civilization

    Title Ancestral Dravidian Languages in Indus Civilization

    Title Ancestral Dravidian Languages in Indus Civilization: Ultraconserved Dravidian Tooth-word Reveals Deep Linguistic Ancestry and Supports Genetics Abstract Ever since the discovery of Indus valley civilization, scholars have debated the linguistic identities of its people. This study analyzes numerous archaeological, linguistic, archaeogenetic and historical evidences to claim that the words used for elephant (like, ‘pīri’, ‘pīru’) in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, the elephant-word used in the Hurrian part of an Amarna letter of ca. 1400 BC, and the ivory-word (‘pîruš’) recorded in certain sixth century BC Old Persian documents, were all originally borrowed from ‘pīlu’, a Proto-Dravidian elephant-word, which was prevalent in the Indus valley civilization, and was etymologically related to the Proto-Dravidian tooth-word ‘*pal’ and its alternate forms (‘*pīl’/‘*piḷ’/‘*pel’). This paper argues that there is sufficient morphophonemic evidence of an ancient Dravidian ‘*piḷ’/‘*pīl’-based root, which meant ‘splitting/crushing’, and was semantically related to the meanings ‘tooth/tusk’. This paper further observes that ‘pīlu’ is among the most ancient and common phytonyms of the toothbrush tree Salvadora persica, which is a characteristic flora of Indus valley, and whose roots and twigs have been widely used as toothbrush in IVC regions since antiquity. This study claims that this phytonym ‘pīlu’ had also originated from the same Proto-Dravidian tooth- word, and argues that since IVC people had named their toothbrush trees and tuskers (elephants) using a Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and since these names were widely used across IVC regions, a significant population of Indus valley civilization must have used that Proto-Dravidian tooth-word in their daily communication.
  • Karumuttu's Passion for Tamil

    Karumuttu's Passion for Tamil

    14 PASSION FOR TAMIL . .for still I seem To love thee more and more. :25'6:257+,7UDYHOO¶GDPRQJ8QNQown Men Kalaithanthai was deeply read in Tamil Literature and was passionately interested in Tamil. It is astonishing that he could find time for Tamil studies in spite of the heavy demands of his business. He cherished the friendship of all Tamil scholars and patronised them like the old Tamil kings. As a young man, when he was in Ceylon, he had the rare opportunity of learning Tamil under the great Jaffna scholar, Chitkailasa Pillai for three years from 1914 to 1917. That was the period when he came under the spell of Tamil Literature, and his interest never flagged since. He studied many Tamil classics with Chitkailasa Pillai. He never missed an opportunity of enriching his knowledge of Tamil Literature. When Arasan Shanmuganar of Sholavandan, a great 7DPLOVFKRODUFDPHRQDPRQWK¶VYLVLWWR&H\ORQ and was a guest of the Karumuttu family, young Kalaithanthai had many valuable lessons in Tamil from him. Later when Arasan Shanmuganar was working in the Tamil Sangam in Madurai, Kalaithanthai renewed his association with him and refreshed his Tamil grammar. ³0DKDPDKRSDGK\D\D´ZDVWKHKLJKHVWWLWOHLQ7DPLOLQWKRVHGD\VDQGWKHUHZHUH only two mahamahopadhyayas - Pandithamani Kathiresan Chettiar and U.V. Swaminatha Iyer. Kathiresan Chettiar was from Mahipalanpatti near A. Thekkur. Kalaithanthai had the highest regard for him. Their relationship was like that between Kapilar (the ancient Tamil poet) and Pari (one of the small Tamil chieftains). Kalaithanthai knew the other Mahamahopadhyaya, U.V. Swaminatha Iyer, a man of the 85 most profound scholarship, a great researcher and a writer, who, by his strenuous efforts, rescued ancient Tamil Sangam works from oblivion.
  • A Sandhi Splitter for Malayalam

    A Sandhi Splitter for Malayalam

    A Sandhi Splitter for Malayalam Devadath V V Litton J Kurisinkel Dipti Misra Sharma Vasudeva Varma Language Technology Research Centre International Institute of Information Technology - Hyderabad, India. devadathv.v,litton.jkurisinkel @research.iiit.ac.in, dipti,vasu @iiit.ac.in { } { } Abstract occur at the point of joining. The presence of Sandhi is abundant in Sanskrit and all Dravidian Sandhi splitting is the primary task for languages. When compared to other Dravidian computational processing of text in San- languages, the presence of Sandhi is relatively skrit and Dravidian languages. In these high in Malayalam. Even a full sentence may languages, words can join together with exist as a single string due to the process of morpho-phonemic changes at the point of Sandhi. For example, Ae\ncnWmm (avanaaraaN) joining. This phenomenon is known as is a sentence in Malayalam which means “Who Sandhi. Sandhi splitter splits the string is he ?”. It is composed of 3 independent words, of conjoined words into individual words. namely Ae°(avan (he)), Bcm(aar(who)) and Accurate execution of sandhi splitting is BWmm (aaN(is)). However, ambiguous splits for crucial for text processing tasks such as a word is very less in Malayalam. Sandhis are POS tagging, topic modelling and doc- of two types, Internal and External. Internal ument indexing. We have tried differ- Sandhi exists between a root or a stem with a ent approaches to address the challenges suffix or a morpheme. In the example given below, of sandhi splitting in Malayalam, and fi- nally, we have thought of exploiting the ]l(para) + Dè(unnu) = ]lÆè(parayunnu) phonological changes that take place in the words while joining.
  • The Dravidian Languages

    The Dravidian Languages

    This page intentionally left blank THE DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES The Dravidian languages are spoken by over 200 million people in South Asia and in diaspora communities around the world, and constitute the world’s fifth largest language family. It consists of about twenty-six lan- guages in total including Tamil, Malay¯alam,. Kannada. and Telugu,as well as over twenty non-literary languages. In this book, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time and an Honorary Member of the Linguistic Society of America, provides a comprehensive study of the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole Dravidian family from different aspects. He describes its history and writing system, dis- cusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also discussed. With its comprehensive coverage this book will be welcomed by all students of Dravidian languages and will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline as well as Indologists. is a leading linguist in India and one of the world’s renowned historical and comparative linguists, specializing in the Dravidian family of languages. He has published over twenty books in English and Telugu and over a hundred research papers. His books include Telugu Verbal Bases: a Comparative and Descriptive Study (1961), Kon. da. or K¯ubi, a Dravidian Language (1969), A Grammar of Modern Telugu (with J. P. L. Gwynn, 1985), Language, Education and Society (1998) and Comparative Dravidian Linguistics: Current Perspectives (2001). CAMBRIDGE LANGUAGE SURVEYS General editors P. Austin (University of Melbourne) J.
  • Emergence of Tamil As Epigraphic Language: Issues in Tamil Historical Linguistics Appasamy Murugaiyan

    Emergence of Tamil As Epigraphic Language: Issues in Tamil Historical Linguistics Appasamy Murugaiyan

    Emergence of Tamil as Epigraphic Language: Issues in Tamil Historical Linguistics Appasamy Murugaiyan To cite this version: Appasamy Murugaiyan. Emergence of Tamil as Epigraphic Language: Issues in Tamil Historical Lin- guistics. Landscapes of Linguistics and Literature A Festscrift for Dr. L. Ramamoorthy, Thennarasu. S., et al. eds. Landscapes of Linguistics and Literature A Festschrift for Dr. L. Ramamoorthy, Thamizhaga Institute of Educational Research & Advancements, Chennai, 2019, Landscapes of Lin- guistics and Literature A Festschrift for Dr. L. Ramamoorthy, Thamizhaga Institute of Educational Research & Advancements, Chennai, 978-93-81101-53-7. halshs-02047368 HAL Id: halshs-02047368 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02047368 Submitted on 24 Feb 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. 1 in Thennarasu. S., et al. eds. Landscapes of Linguistics and Literature A Festschrift for Dr. L. Ramamoorthy, Thamizhaga Institute of Educational Research & Advancements, Chennai, 2019, 9-24. Emergence of Tamil as Epigraphic Language: Issues in Tamil Historical Linguistics1 Appasamy Murugaiyan EPHE-Mondes iranien et indien, Paris “I am, however, of the opinion that it may not be quite safe to use this grammar [tolkāppiyam] as an absolute yardstick for measuring or estimating the chronology and the historical evolution of forms [of the śaṅgam texts]” (L.
  • Interpreting the Indus Script

    Interpreting the Indus Script

    Interpreting the Indus Script: Te Dravidian Solution* Iravatham Mahadevan Dravidian University has been established to promote research into Dravidian languages, literature and culture. Location of the University at Kuppam, the tri-junction of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamilnadu, symbolises the objective of the University to serve the cause of the Dravidian. Te venue and the occasion have pre-determined the subject of my address today, namely, recent advances in the study of the Indus Script. My field is Tamil Epigraphy, with special interest in Brahmi and Indus scripts. I consider it providential that the present occasion has coincided with two important landmarks in my research career spanning more than half a century. One of them relates to the Brahmi and the other to the Indus scripts. I shall mention their significance briefly before proceeding with the subject mater of today’s address. Recent discoveries in early Tamil epigraphy Te first is the recent publication of the second and enlarged edition of my book, Early Tamil Epigraphy. Tis edition includes not only Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, but also the earliest potery inscriptions in Prakrit and Old Sinhala languages found from recent excavations in Tamilnadu. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are the earliest records in Dravidian. Potery inscriptions in the neighboring languages found in Tamilnadu represent the earliest atestation of the interaction of Dravidian with Indo-Aryan cultures in South India. Some of the * Convocation Address. 26th February, 2015. Dravidian University. Kuppam.